


a knife on the things that held us together

by pearwaldorf



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Misery, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pre-Canon, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6587638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearwaldorf/pseuds/pearwaldorf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The Praxeum, ma’am. It’s been attacked.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a knife on the things that held us together

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody on Tumblr prompted me with a line of dialogue: "Please, don't leave." I do not think this is what they had in mind.

Leia’s in a meeting when an aide pulls her aside. She’s irritated at first, because she’s been working on this rotating capital business for months, and all the New Republic worlds are finally, _finally_ ready to come to the table. After seeing the grim set of her aide’s mouth, her annoyance is replaced with a growing sense of dread. (Or perhaps she’s letting the awareness permeate. The only way she can concentrate on work is blocking out everything else. She never needed Luke to teach her that.) 

“The Praxeum, ma’am. It’s been attacked.” She sits down on a bench, casting out for Luke and Ben. Instead of the tickles of awareness that are always there when she searches, there’s _nothing_. They’re not dead, she knows that for sure; but the blankness is even more frightening. It feels like a durasteel wall: inscrutable, impenetrable. She wonders if more training would have helped. But it’s too late for that now.

“What do we know?” She asks, more curtly than she intends. 

“Very little, unfortunately. It looks like they were hit hard. We’ve been unable to get in touch with Master Skywalker or your son.” She nods, unsurprised. 

“General Solo?” 

“He would like you to know he is on his way to the Praxeum from Hosnian Prime.”

“Tell him I’ll meet him there.” She hopes the talks won’t fall apart without her. 

\--

Smoke is visible from her shuttle, and she can feel something drop in her chest. Exiting the ship, she can see the Falcon nearby, and gods help her, she’s comforted. She casts out for Luke or Ben, and once again hits that wall. Chewie’s waiting for her at the end of the ramp. 

“Where’s Han?” She asks.

“Assessing damage, looking for Luke and Ben.” Only he doesn’t say “Ben”, but rather something that doesn’t really translate to Basic from Shyriwook: small pup, beloved as family, one my life debt extends to. (It’s a very compact but nuanced language, once you become familiar with it.) Chewie hasn’t called him that in years. 

Her comm crackles: a message on her personal channel, the one only friends and family have access to. 

“Leia. Are you planetside? You need to get here, right now.” It’s Han, and it must be bad if he’s addressing her without mocking titles or even a bit of sarcasm. 

“On my way.” 

She doesn’t think it looks so bad until she makes her way into the courtyard. There are bodies everywhere, covered or neatly wrapped in voluminous robes. Too many are very small, and she sways, her body remembering exactly how it felt on the bridge of a Star Destroyer so many years ago, watching another world destroyed.

Chewie puts his arm around her shoulders, and she’s grateful for his warm, soft bulk at her side. Han’s kneeling next to Luke, who’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard. This close, she should be able to feel him, the way she can sense the terror and panic that’s soaked into the ground and stones of the Praxeum. But there’s nothing, just a blot where he should be in her Force sense.

She kneels in front of her brother, heedless of the mud squishing into her pants. His eyes flicker briefly, but he doesn’t speak or acknowledge her otherwise.

“He’s been like this since I got here.” Han’s voice is soft, worried. “I haven’t been able to get him to snap out of whatever this is.” She nods grimly.

“And Ben?” She asks, although she’s afraid she knows the answer already.

“No sign of him. I’ve looked everywhere I can think.” 

“He’s not here,” Luke replies, his voice a barely present rasp. He sounds so incredibly tired. 

_A flood of images: bodies, blaster-burned, cauterized by lightsabers, their eyes closed by a pair of familiar hands, hoods of robes draped over faces. There are so many. Sheeting rain in the dark, a red lightsaber with cross hilts, held by a masked figure. She can hear a child sobbing in the background. The figure is about Ben’s height._

“Where is he, then? We have to go find him!” Han’s voice is just this side of panic, and distantly she thinks, he’s always been the worrier. (He was the one who always wanted to call the medical droid when Ben so much as sniffled or cut his knees, who almost wrapped the entire interior of the Falcon in plasfoam to baby-proof it.) 

“He did this, Han. Our son. Ben did this.” Saying it out loud is the most difficult thing she’s ever done in a lifetime of hard decisions. But it must be done, because it’s the truth.

She can feel Han cave in, physically and mentally. She touches his arm, and he moves away from her. It hurts so much more than she expected.

“Not your son. Kylo Ren. That’s what he calls himself now.” 

“So what, when he’s your responsibility we separate the two? I seem to recall an awful lot of conversations over the years where somebody talked about Vader and Anakin Skywalker in the same breath!” Han’s shaking in fury now, and she can’t really disagree. Being a Skywalker has never sat easily with her, but she thought she’d made her peace with it when she found out she was pregnant. A new life, a new start, guided by a new kind of Jedi, who promised to keep him safe. 

( _Is our corruption inevitable? Should I not even try?_ She asked herself all of these things sixteen years ago, and the baby kicked, as if in response. She reached out with the Force, and felt him grasp the tendril of thought she extended, hale and strong and full of love. _We can do this,_ she thought, _Han and Luke and I._ She refuses to think about how she would answer now.)

Republic relief troops have started filtering into the Praxeum, to count and assess and arrange. It’s a relief to be able to fall back into something she’s familiar with. Good at, even. She comes back to the courtyard when all the details are taken care of. Han is gone, probably in the Falcon, but Luke is still exactly where she left him. 

“Come on. We need to go.” He gets up, and only now seems to notice his pants are covered in mud and grass. They walk to where the ships are parked, and he turns to her.

“I think I’d better take the shuttle. You and Han should probably talk.” On some level, she’s glad he doesn’t apologize. It means he understands the depth of his failure. She watches him walk onto the shuttle, letting the draft from its takeoff buffet her face. Then she has something to blame when her eyes are all red.

(It’s the last time she’ll see him for decades. Over the years, she thinks she would have hugged him if she’d known.) 

\--

“It was Snoke. He did this.” She says over the dejarik table. Chewie is in the cockpit, minding the ship. Han hasn’t slept at all since they took off. She knows, because she heard him banging around all night. (There’s always something wrong with the Falcon, which is convenient if a person needs distraction.)

“That old wizard in the First Order?” 

She nods. “I thought Luke would be able to keep him safe.” She says. They both underestimated him, the reach of his influence. It is a mistake they will all pay for the rest of their lives.

“How long have you known?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” She will, if he asks. She owes him that much.

“Long enough, then.” Han’s anger runs hot, loud, quick. She’s never seen him ice over like this.

“You’re not Force-sensitive. I thought you wouldn’t understand.” It seems a terribly inadequate justification now, but it seemed to make sense at the time. 

“You never gave me a chance to.” His voice is soft, hurt. 

“No, no I didn’t, and I’m sorry.” She takes a deep breath. “I thought it was my responsibility, and Luke’s, to keep him away from the dark side.”

He puts his hand over hers, and she wants to pull away. She doesn’t want to be comforted after all the things she’s fucked up. “Leia, he’s my _son_. You don’t think I would have helped, if I’d known?” 

“I know you would have.” 

Chewie appears in the doorway. “We’re approaching Coruscant,” he says. Han nods and gets up from the table. 

“Please, don’t leave.” He pauses for a moment, like he wants to turn around and stay, if only for another minute, but decides against it. He and Chewie head to the cockpit, and she is alone.

This, she will think later, is the first time he starts walking away. It never really stops after that.


End file.
